Napoleon and the British

In 1815, Napoleon was, to establishment Britain, as represented by
the editor of the Times, "the vile Corsican! ...
a Wretch! ... a notorious Impostor! ... a mere Brigand!
... that cowardly and perfidious Traitor! ... the Arch
Rebel! ... the Corsican usurper! ... l'Empereur de la Canaille
..." Or so a broadside entitled Buonapartephobia reported,
ridiculing the extreme rhetoric used to vilify the former Emperor.
William Hazlitt, Napoleon's admiring biographer, was to observe that
"Every body knows that it is only necessary to raise a bugbear
before the English imagination in order to govern it at will."

In response to the French Revolution and the creation of the French
empire, there arose an extreme form of popular "loyalism"
in Britain—"the heart-on-sleeve popular conservative ideology that
proclaimed (sometimes in bombastic tones) love for king and country."
For those espousing this view, Britain was "the only bar that stands
between Napoleon and the empire of the world," conveniently ignoring
Britain's own imperial ambitions. In its most extreme form, loyalism
could almost cheer Prussia's defeat at Jena by Napoleon as fulfilling
Britain's messianic destiny to stand alone against the French tide.
Wordsworth decried a future where Britain "shall have no more formidable
enemies [and thus bring about] the extinction of all that [Britain]
previously contained of [the] good and great..." The poet continued,
"If a nation have nothing to oppose or to fear without, it cannot
escape decay and concussion within." Britain was searching for
a sense of identity and Napoleon was to become a key yardstick by which
Britain could define itself.

Stuart Semmel has produced an imaginative look at the variety of opinion
on Napoleon's rise, progress and fall. A study of what was written about
Napoleon, and what was written about him necessarily affected what was
thought about Napoleon or at least what the writers wanted Britons to
think about Napoleon. Semmel has consulted a myriad of contemporary
speeches, pamphlets, broadsides, poems, quarterly reviews, caricatures,
plays, newspapers, songs, diaries, etc. of all stripes to explore the
protean opinions of the British. Because Napoleon refused to be easily
categorized many British observers had difficulties pinning him down.
Was he monarchical or Jacobinical? Was he the destroyer of religion
or its restorer? Did he continue the Revolution or end it? Was he a
"pygmy" or a "Colossus?" Robert Southey who was
criticizing the Consular government for not concentrating power in the
executive in 1800 was complaining about Napoleon's tyrannical power
a few years later.

Loyalist commentators used the chameleon-like Napoleon as the antipode
to all that was "British," while the opposition were as often
to see Napoleon as something less than the Beast of Revelations and
sometimes as a polestar. If to the extreme loyalist churchmen the "French
Devil" was Satan incarnate, a "fiend from hell," to the
extreme anti-anti-Napoleonists like William Hamilton Reid he was an
"agent of the Messiah." For Britain's conservative Protestant
ministers Napoleon was an atheist, a Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim—"the
professor and disbeliever of all religions"—while some praised
him as the scourge of the Papacy.

The British could cast all the contradictory epithets and accusations
at the French emperor without concern whether taken as a whole they
made up a coherent narrative, whether or not they made sense, much less
whether they were true or provable, because it didn't matter as long
as some of them resonated with the British population. Even individual
commentators might swing wildly in opinion from year to year. Richard
Whately (Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte) asked
rhetorically if the story of Napoleon "had been fabricated for
the express purpose of amusing the English nation, could it have been
contrived more ingeniously?"

Even before the Revolution the enmity between Britain and France was
long-standing. Whereas before the revolution the British saw the French
as effete and frivolous, anti-Christian (Papism being unchristian),
slavishly subservient to authority, afterwards the French character
traits had somehow transmuted to savagery, anarchy and anti-Christian
(atheistic). Under Napoleon the fickle French returned to their pre-Revolutionary
character as "dust-licking slaves." The French were "true
spaniels, who ever fawn and lick where they are worst treated,"
they were "unfit for freedom," "vindictive, and cowardly,
"rapacious Assassins."

The renewal of war in 1803 saw the unleashing of, in Semmel's view,
a propaganda campaign "unprecedented in its scope." Pamphlets,
caricatures, handbills and songs were churned out by writers and artists,
under the supervision of a handful of publishers, assuring a "remarkable
uniformity of message and image." Broadsides were "all calculated
to raise in the lower classes," one publisher stated, "a just
detestation of the character and base designs of the enemy." Some
of these publications were subsidized by the government, while others
were purchased by "noblemen, magistrates, and gentlemen" for
distribution to the less fortunate.

In an effort to enlist the laboring classes—who only a few years earlier
Burke was calling the "swinish multitude"—in resisting the
expected French invasion, broadside writers raised the fearsome vision
of rapine and horror which would result if the French landed. With
a deep down fear that the poor would be more likely to welcome the French
than fight them, the broadsides claimed that the poor would be "turned
out in gangs like galley slaves." Those not lucky enough to be
enslaved, Napoleon would transport or massacre." The wives, mothers
and daughters of the poor would be raped, while their meager possessions
would be pillaged and French troops quartered in their homes. France,
which had been turned into "one immense brothel" under the
principles of the Revolution, a land where the violation of women had
been included in the "rights of man," would turn good English
women into prostitutes.

If that wasn't bad enough the Englishman would be forced to give up
their roast beef and porter for roasted frogs and "salad."
British children would be sent abroad to be "Frenchified"
and to learn to speak French, while their older siblings would be flogged
for speaking English. The young men would be impressed into the French
armies. William Cobbett claimed the French "would affix badges
upon us, mark us in the cheek, shave our heads, split our ears, or clothe
us in the habits of slaves." London would be renamed "Bonapart-opolis;"
Britain's government would be shot in Hyde Park. Trade would dry up
and wages would plummet. The Poor Laws would be overturned, and Englishmen
would be forced to become "citizens of the world."

Even the war itself threatened British institutions. William Cobbett,
still in his "loyalist" phase, could equally decry the dropping
of George III's claim to the French crown and the waning of bull-baiting
as sure signs of the fall of British civilization and the degeneracy
of the British character. The loyalists' Napoleon-phobia betrayed a
deep cultural unease, an undercurrent of fear and a severe "millennial
anxiety about the future of Britain."

Napoleon was attacked for his "foreignness." Even though
Corsica had been annexed to France before Napoleon's birth, Napoleon
was criticized as a "foreign" despot, "Corsican upstart"
and "Corsican usurper" were frequent epithets. The use of
the Italian spelling of Napoleon's names—Napoleone and Buonaparte (or
even Buonaparté)—was another strategy to emphasize his "otherness."
The Italian spelling linked Napoleon, in the popular mind, with "the
low cunning and revengeful spirit of an Italian." One pamphlet
boasted that's its use of Buonaparte would prevent Napoleon's old name
"from sinking wholly into oblivion"—as if such a thing was
possible considering its ubiquitous use. The pamphlet went on to assert
un-ironically that "despotic as he may be, [Napoleon could not]
make every person to write [his name] after the same way."

At the heart of the loyalist critique of Napoleon was the concept of
legitimacy (a concept which probably equally consumed Napoleon). Wordsworth,
the former republican turned loyalist, compared the French return to
monarchy in the guise of Napoleon's imperial crown to a dog returning
to its own vomit. Others continued with the Jacobin trope-refusing
to abandon an epithet that they had sent so much energy upon and that
had for so long served them well—only to name Napoleon a Jacobin crowned.
The opposition, on the other hand, used Napoleon's self-made crown as
a means of critiquing hereditary monarchy.

On a deeper level Napoleon was like a tailor's dummy on which British
loyalists could pin all their fears and anxieties—fears of modernity,
of change, of the lower classes, of reform, of the decay of a largely
mythical British character, of Catholic, Jewish or female emancipation,
etc. Napoleon was a means to renew all that had been seemingly lost
in modern times by allowing loyalists to define British in opposition
to whatever characteristics the writer which to impart to the chameleon-like
Napoleon. A use to which modern inheritors of the "black legend"
still put him. Alan Schom or Paul Johnson would be readily recognizable
to readers of Lewis Goldsmith or Henry Redhead Yorke.

The most interesting aspect of Semmel's book is the discussion of those
in Britain who refused to follow the government line on Napoleon. Unlike
some in Britain like Coleridge and Wordsworth who, after Napoleon's
taking power, renounced their former republicanism for strict loyalism,
many radicals were more ambiguous about Napoleon. "To a much greater
degree than has been recognized," Semmel comments, "many British
radicals continued to have kind words to say about Napoleon, and continued
to use him as a cudgel with which to chastise their own rulers."
To some extent the extreme nature of many of the loyalist assaults on
anyone seeking to reform the current system forced radicals to turn
to Napoleon to critique the establishment. In the end, Napoleon "functioned
in British radical argument as a counter-monarch...he posed a contrasting
case that enable the interrogation of monarchy."

Responding to criticisms of Napoleon as an "upstart," the
opposition for example referred to the Wellesleys as an "upstart
family." Others asked how could Napoleon be a "usurper"
when he had been called to the throne by the French people. Radical
journalists responding to the loyalists concerns questioning Napoleon's
legitimacy pointed to Britain's Glorious Revolution. To prove his political
illegitimacy Napoleon's loyalist critics questioned Napoleon's biological
legitimacy. It wasn't enough for Napoleon to be an "upstart"
and "usurper," but he had "sprung from Nobody knows whom."
Coleridge writes of Napoleon's "reputed father, the Scrivener of
Ajaccio." Napoleon's mother was described as a common prostitute.
Lewis Goldsmith, never one to miss an opportunity to vilify his enemy,
referred to Napoleon's "bastard family."

Other opposition critics also drew parallels between Napoleon's actions
and Britain's. Napoleon's imperial ambitions were compared to Britain's,
Napoleon's assaults on "innocent" nations compared to Britain's
attacks on Denmark, Napoleon's destruction of the Inquisition and the
imprisoning of the Pope compared to Britain's persecution of Catholics
in Ireland. Napoleon's recently-minted titles were compared to the
relatively recent origins of Britain's own royal family and the equally
recently-minted imperial title of the Austrian king. Some radical argued
that despite everything for many in Europe the French conquerors were
an improvement their own home-grown "tyrants." William Cobbett,
almost a special case, claimed that the government had done more harm
to the English Constitution that Napoleon ever had. Napoleon, Cobbett
observed, had introduced trail by jury to France while the Ministry
was eroding it in Britain.

The opposition's embrace of Napoleon scarcely survived his first downfall.
Most readily accepted the Bourbon restoration. One radical newspaper
blamed its former apparent support of Napoleon on the "rancour,
and prejudice and servility" of the ministerial press. William
Cobbett however expressed no surprise that the loyalist Times on Napoleon's
fall was calling for "NO PEACE WITH JAMES MADISON"—truly going
from the sublime to the ridiculous. Henry Redhead Yorke attacked even
the infant King of Rome, Napoleon's son, as a "baboon" who
"must perish for the crimes of his parent" and Marie
Louise as a "young prostitute."

After Napoleon's return from Elba and the declaration of the liberal
empire, the opposition's support and admiration for Napoleon was more
enthusiastic and open than it had been during the war. Byron, whose
ode to Napoleon after his first abdication criticized Napoleon for failing
to kill himself, excused the Emperor for "falsifying every line
of mine Ode." Napoleon went from child of Fortune to child of
Misfortune almost overnight and his exile to St. Helena only made the
former "tyrant" into a victim. Loyalists predictably saw Napoleon
in exile as "a froward child," while equally predictable the
opposition found in captivity something Promethean.

To the radicals St. Helena was the "grave of British honour,"
and the government was unsportingly kicking a man while he was down.
Others legalistically asserted that once within British jurisdiction
Napoleon should have been subject to British laws including habeas
corpus and trial by jury. They also pointed out that the decision
to exile the former emperor had been made without consulting Parliament.
Parliament had to retroactively pass a law to regularize what was a
fait accompli. On St. Helena even the debate over national caricatures
got turned on its head as some in the opposition accused Governor Lowe
of having adopted the characteristics of the Corsican due to his having
commanded a Corsican regiment of "fellons" and other cut-throats.

To assume that that all the anti-anti-Napoleonists were Jacobins, fellow-travelers,
or "useful idiots" would be to to accept on face value the
loyalists' characterization of them. Whether in the McCarthy era or
our own, the book demonstrates the long-term futility of the extreme
rhetoric on both ends of the political spectrum, where ideology overwhelms
common sense. The difference was that writers in the Opposition were
very likely to pay for their exercise of free speech with prosecution
in court or a lengthy prison terms. The most absurd case was Thomas
J. Wooler, publisher of the radical Black Dwarf, who was arrested
in the spring of 1817 and charged with "a libel upon King John,
King Charles the First, King James the second, and King William the
third: besides the commons house of Parliament, and the whole people
of England, under the familiar appellation of John Bull."

One of the strangest incidents concerning Napoleon's political illegitimacy
involved the death of Princess Charlotte, the heiress presumptive to
the British throne. Her death in childbirth in November 1817 meant
that after George III's sons, none of whom had legitimate heirs (Victoria
wouldn't be born until 1819), the line of succession would pass to the
Continental branches of the family. Third in line to the throne was
Princess Catherine of Württemberg, the third cousin to Princess Charlotte
and wife of Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother. If Catherine's two
cousins died without issue, Catherine and Jerome's son would wear the
British crown, and a Bonaparte would be the legitimate king of Britain.
Radicals salivated at the thought of their former legitimist persecutors
having to bend their knees in honor of a nephew of the "Corsican
upstart."

Napoleon's role for many Britons was as ambiguous and protean then
as it is today. Those with strong, clear, unchanging and unnuanced
opinions, whether pro or con, are those whose opinions were most actuated
by ideology. In the end, Semmel observes Napoleon "would continue
to be a subject of historical controversy, about whom radically contradictory
things could be written, and would continue to inspire artistic production...But
later British treatments of Napoleon were, interestingly, independent
salvoes...rather than thrusts and parries in an ongoing battle."
But the rhetoric of the battles of the early nineteenth century continued
to inform many later writers.

Not a history of Napoleon (Semmel avoids expressing his own opinion
on Napoleon), actual facts of Napoleon's life are largely irrelevant
to Semmel's account. Instead this is a history of British opinion
about Napoleon. Opinion doesn't necessarily need to be strictly based
on facts and often wasn't. After all British mothers were allegedly
frightening their wayward offspring with the bogeyman of boney coming
to get them. Throughout Napoleon's public life a debate raged in the
British political (and literary) press. Any politically aware Briton
could not help having been caught up in the torrent and often tossed
upon its stormy seas.

Semmel summarizes a wealth of contemporary political rhetoric from
a wide variety of sources which the reader will never encounter on their
own without immersing oneself in the ephemeral literature of the day.
Several examples of contemporary political cartoons are presented, but
in black-and-white and often too small to read the caricatures' text.
Perhaps a section of colored, full-page reproductions would have done
better justice to these illustrations.